1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the tracking of objects in image data. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for estimating the position of moving objects in a set of image data.
2. Background Information
Target Tracking is an essential requirement for surveillance systems employing one or more sensors, together with computer subsystems, to interpret an environment. The objective of target tracking is to collect sensor data from a field of view (FOV) containing one or more potential targets of interest and to then partition the sensor data into sets of observations, or tracks, that are produced by the same sources. Once tracks are formed and confirmed (so that background and other false targets are reduced), the number of targets can be estimated and quantities, such as target velocity, future predicted position, and target classification characteristics, can be computed for each track.
A target tracker can lose track of a target for many different reasons. For example, missiles plumes, blurring of the image, the target going behind objects such as trees or buildings, and aspect changes are just a few of the possible reasons which can cause a target tracker to lose track of the target. Whatever the reason, however, the results are the same. In most circumstances when the target tracker indicates that there is insufficient information to track the target, a loss of track occurs, which forces that operator to reacquire the target. Thus, operators must spend time to reacquire the target track instead of being allowed to accomplish other tasks.
It would be desirable to provide a simple method that can be used by any target tracker for automatically tracking objects that may become occluded for a period of time by any type of occlusion.